Mamas of Africa: How a new female-only expedition is helping empower women in Kenya

Women in Kenya are on a mission to improve gender equality through tourism. Georgia Stephens travels from Nairobi to hear their stories

Women are changing Kenya’s future (Georgia Stephens)

Hold on tight!” comes the warning, too late, as the truck hits a rock and makes a break for the sky. One second, two seconds and bump – we’re back on the dirt road to continue on our rattling way. To my left the scrubland’s tangle of thorn bushes is a blur, vanishing at some far-off point beneath a sweep of umbrella acacias. Hot wafts of baked earth blow in through the truck’s open windows, while up front Becky is shifting gear. The top of her cornrowed head is peeking over the driver’s cab. At 50 years old, she’s east Africa’s first female overland truck driver.

We’re skirting the boundary of the Samburu National Reserve, a protected 64-square-mile sweep of parched semi-desert two hours north of Mount Kenya and a further four hours still from the capital, Nairobi, where our journey began. It’s 38C – this close to the equator, daytime temperatures rarely drop below 30C.

Many who visit Kenya come to see wildlife, to watch nature unfold as it always has here under the rule of tusk and claw. And we will too eventually, once we head south for the plains of the Maasai Mara. But I’m on Intrepid’s inaugural Kenya women’s expedition, and I’m here to listen to the stories of its mamas – that is, the matriarchs of local society. Becky is a mama; these days they call her Mama Overland. But when she first followed in her father’s footsteps to become a driver, she became a controversial figure overnight.